


Future Masterpiece (or, Dairy Divination)

by Massiel



Category: Ratatouille (2007)
Genre: Cheese, Divination, Gen, Tyromancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 08:03:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1502948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Massiel/pseuds/Massiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course rats have fortune tellers. Of course they use cheese instead of tarot cards. But that cheese could be used for more important things, like cooking...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Masterpiece (or, Dairy Divination)

**Author's Note:**

> I like reading about the weird forms of divination, and tyromancy leapt out at me because I love eating cheese. I also love Ratatouille. This fic was born.

Little known fact: rats have soothsayers.

This might be difficult to believe, but we're just as curious about the future as humans are. We want to know what's in store for us, too.

Our methods, it must be said, have had to be adapted.

Take, for instance, old Tephanie. Now, when I say old, I really mean old. She's the most ancient rat I've ever seen. Her eyes are mostly cloudy, like milky soup, and her claws are like gnarled roots. Her fur is mangy. But she's the best tyromancer our colony’s ever had. But what's that, you ask?

Someone who can divine the future by using cheese.

(Told you we've adapted.)

Rats venerate cheese. By nature, we're scavengers, and we rarely come across good cheese, aged well and stored properly. Far more often it's moldy-- and not on purpose, like Gorgonzola. So when we come across a fresh piece, like a glorious sign from the culinary gods, we bring it to Tephanie. (This, admittedly, has become much easier since Linguini and Colette opened _La Ratatouille_ ; we can access cheese whenever we want now. But in the olden days…)

That’s what all the buzz around the colony is about at the moment. Last night, Emile and his friends brought in an actual, perfect _wedge_ almost as big as my head. Tephanie’s holed away in some corner of the restaurant, examining it, counting the holes, seeing if any mold is growing on it. It’s all part of her process.

I’m trying to keep busy, too. The results matter to me as much as they’d matter to anyone else in the colony. But at the same time—it’s a piece of Beaufort D’Ete. My paws are twitching just thinking about what I could do with such an exquisite ingredient: we can’t afford to work with Beaufort D’Ete at _La Ratatouille_. If I’m fortunate, the rest of the colony won’t devolve into a horde of scrapping rats and I’ll be able to experiment with it.

The fact remains that my luck has never been the best.

 

I’m pacing in the kitchen. Tephanie’s had the cheese for an entire day—it’s my turn! Just how in-depth is she examining it? Steadfastly, I refuse to consider that she may have, in her deluded old age, devoured it.

Fed up, I decide to confront her. It’s been long enough, and it’s not only me who wants information. I can hear the colony getting restless. So I take it upon myself to talk to the mangy old soothsayer.

Except that she comes to me first.

She sniffs the air in my direction, making sure I’m there. “That you, Remy?”

“Yes,” I say reluctantly. Now that she’s here in front of me, I’m not sure I want to hear what she has to say.

To my surprise, she holds out a chunk of the cheese. It is nowhere near the size of the full wedge; a more accurate approximation would be enough to contain in my two cupped front paws. For a moment, I’m irritated—then grateful. I have so much of this delicacy to myself, to do with as I wish without accountability.

“Thank you,” I said, and I mean it sincerely. “What did you divine from the dairy?”

Tephanie chuckles a little at my words. “The colony will be in good health and safe for at least a year; I cannot see further than that. And you, Remy…”

My heart leaps as she trails off, though it is not with hope. “What?”

“Be careful to not let your imagination carry you away. You have everything you need here and now.”

The elderly rat leaves and I am left with a lump of cheese in my paws. I glance down at it; is it my imagination, or does it not seem as appetizing as the idea of it? I nibble at it: the taste is divine.

After a moment, I take it to my tiny, private space in the kitchen: a small hole behind a large canister of flour. I sit on my haunches and place the cheese, the magnificent Beaufort D’Ete next to me.

Tephanie may be a soothsayer, and she may be correct about the future, for all I know. But to not have imagination? My imagination, my culinary creativity, is the reason the colony is here and safe to begin with. She is definitively right about one thing, though—with this cheese, I do have everything I need to create a new masterpiece, a new signature recipe.

Little known fact: as a chef, I live in the moment.


End file.
